1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a recipe generation system and a recipe generation method and, for example, to an application for generating a recipe of a scanning electron microscope off-line using design data.
2. Background Art
A file called a recipe which has alignment point information (an alignment chip, in-chip coordinates, alignment conditions, an image for automatic detection, and the like) and length measurement point information (a length measurement chip, in-chip coordinates, length measurement conditions, an image for automatic length measurement, and the like) recorded therein is required for length measurement using a CD-SEM (Critical Dimension Scanning Electron Microscope). This recipe needs to be generated for each of captured images necessary for length measurement.
Since the process of generating such a recipe using scanning electron microscope instrumentation while actually viewing a SEM image reduces the operating rate of the instrumentation, there is a strong need for generating a recipe off-line. There have been developed off-line recipe generation systems for generating a recipe of a CD-SEM off-line to meet the need. Off-line recipe generation methods are said to fall roughly into two types: those involving input of values on a screen (Method 1) and those using an input file for recipe generation including values (Method 2).
A method involving input of values on a screen (Method 1) is a method for generating a recipe of a CD-SEM by inputting values, such as coordinate values to be measured by the CD-SEM and imaging conditions, necessary for the recipe on a GUI. A method using an input file (Method 2) is a method for generating a recipe using an input file for off-line recipe generation and design data as input data. For example, assume that thousands of captured images are necessary. In this case, since manual setting of a recipe on a GUI by Method 1 takes time, recipe generation by Method 2 is more efficient.
Examples of Method 2 described above include the process of simply converting values set in an input file for off-line recipe generation by a user into a recipe without change and the process of optimizing values of information on an alignment point and information on a length measurement point and outputting the optimized values to a recipe. A recipe generated by any of the above-described methods can be displayed on a GUI and can be changed. It is also possible to change alignment information and measurement point information after making a recipe actually work on a CD-SEM. A recipe regenerated in such a manner is a high-precision recipe which has undergone optimization processing and has been user-modified. There is a user need for making a copy of this recipe and using the copy when generating another recipe.    Patent Document 1: JP Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 2007-3212 A (corresponding to U.S. Pat. No. 7,365,322)    Patent Document 2: JP Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 2006-351746 A (corresponding to US 2006/0288325)